Ground Control
Ground Control
PG-13 | 26 August 1998 (USA)
Ground Control Trailers

An air-traffic controller quits after a plane crash but, years later, goes to help an airport that is in the path of a terrible storm.

Reviews
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!
ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
mark-1306 I'm currently in process to become an air traffic controller, so I'm at the point where I devour anything relating to ATC. I don't need to write anything else about the inaccuracies in the movie, as a couple of former ATC's have done that. The phraseology, the scopes, the sets - they're pretty far from the real thing.What I'd like to do, however, is talk about what I found *right* about the movie. There are three pretty big things that I felt get across the overall theme of ATC: 1) When Kristy Swanson's character starts screwing up after first plugging in, Kiefer's character plugs in with her. After saving her butt, he goes into a discussion of how to look at the scope. In your mind, you need to turn this 2D display into a 3D representation. Then, you use the information you have about each aircraft - its speed, altitude, and direction - to see and resolve conflicts ahead of time.I felt that was a pretty accurate description of what's going through a controller's mind when he's looking at the scope.2) The bit by the young "hotshot" controller, where he talks about how controllers view airplanes, is pretty spot on. You can't view them as individual airplanes full of hundreds of people - you need to detach yourself from that completely, or otherwise you'll go crazy with the pressure. I've talked with many controllers, and they each use different methods. Some picture empty airplanes in their mind, some just see "targets", some view them as math problems to solved, as is the case in the movie.3) The constant battle of safety vs. budget. If you look at today's FAA, they have slashed controller pay, forced out the more experienced higher-paid controllers, blown billions on failed technology upgrade projects, and generally made a mess of things. The facility where I'm being assigned to has constant equipment failures, mainly because the equipment in question is over 30 years old. Miami Center's Oceanic sector - which covers the entire strip of ocean from Miami to the Dominican Republic - has frequent radar outages which take days to fix.And as traffic increases more and more every year, there are fewer controllers to guide them. Everyone will tell you that ATC is a stressful job, and that you need to unplug every time knowing you had 100% accuracy. Now imagine forcing someone to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week under that pressure. That's the reality at the world's busiest facilities - like Atlanta Center - which are understaffed. Take a look at what happened with that fatal ComAir crash in Kentucky. The tower was short staffed, so they only had 1 controller on duty instead of the required two. 50 people died as a result.And through every error, the FAA always says: "Safety was never compromised". For that reason, I found the conflicts between the working controllers and the management to be pretty realistic. The controllers want things to run safely, whereas the management wants to cut corners and boost their own careers.Think about that the next time you fly.
shortz So bad it was fun! I've not watched a movie in a long time that had me shouting at the screen like this one. I've been an air traffic control engineer for 29 years, so I may know a little bit about this stuff. Not one piece of equipment or system was accurately portrayed in this movie. They say one thing has failed and then Fonzie goes out and fixes something quite different. If they did hire an ATC consultant I can only guess they got a retired cleaner who had heard some ATC talk and glimpsed the equipment many years ago. Then they ignored what their "expert" told them!!Everything about this movie was wrong, ATC, people, aeroplanes and equipment. Good fun to watch if you have any knowledge of the subject at all so you can play spot the mistake. Spotting the accurate bit would be much more of a challenge. If you don't know anything about ATC rest assured in real life its not like this at all.
MovieAddict2016 And that's basically all you need to know.I saw this film because of Kiefer Sutherland but was totally unimpressed. Basically he's an air traffic controller who runs into trouble and finds himself in a tight spot.I saw this screened on Channel 5 in the UK and it's so forgettable I don't wish to critique it on a normal basis as I regularly do. Instead, I'm going to simply say: The acting is poor, even by Sutherland; the script is cliched; the direction is mediocre.I'd say this isn't horrible but certainly not worth your time.2/5.
bob the moo Five years after he was kicked off the job after being on shift during a plane crash, Jack Harris is called back into the job to cover a busy Christmas period (if only to run the printer tags). However, Jack takes over from a rookie and gets back into it despite flashbacks. However his skills are pushed to breaking point when the traffic control system suffers several major failures and power cuts.Like the vast majority of viewers, I came to this film on the back of Sutherland's recent return to the spotlight in 24. In the advertisement this film appeared to be a tense film about the tight world of air traffic control, however in reality this film fails to ever really get going or have anything which grips or engages. The plot is pretty full of holes and episodic, it relies on the characters speaking jargon really quickly more than making the danger and urgency of any of the situations seem real. Some have said that this film is not realistic - I don't know, but I suspect they are right. Certainly it fails to make any valid points about a system that (in the UK) many acknowledge is starting to show cracks at best.The film's episodic nature suggests it lacks any sense of focus other than the general situation that made up the film's pitch. This sucks any momentum out of it and leaves it stuttering a lot. The cast look like they will prevent this - at least on paper they do, in reality they are bogged down by a film that must have looked like it had potential to be as taut as an elastic band. Sutherland does OK but can't find the tension any better than I could. Comparisons with 24 are null and void, even if his character here is called Jack. Leonard is pretty good in support but not even a cast that includes faces like McGill, McGillis, Swanson and Winkler can raise this above average.While it is not awful, it is just really unmemorable to say the least. The plot isn't sure where it is going and goes nowhere as a result. With this the tension falls away to zero and the well-known cast only serves to remind that potential is being lost in all areas with this film.